Category: sfwa

I attended Boskone before I started publishing science fiction and I was impressed by the number of authors I recognized. I’ve attended the last two years and it still hasn’t lost that magic. And being able to rub shoulders now as an author myself is a lot of fun. I was particularly looking forward to setting up a fan table for the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers Association (SFWA) and meeting SFWA members that I expected would drop by.

I like to arrive the night before so I can get a good night’s sleep and have plenty of time to find everything to get ready beforehand. But this year, there was a storm the day before and some work events conflicted with getting an early start. So we decided to wait and just drive over on the morning of the convention.

When we arrived, I visited the area where registration would be. There was one person there and I was gratified that they recognized my name. We confirmed when registration would open and where the fan tables were.

After we checked in, we went back to the car and, on the way, found that the galleria was already open. Once we’d put our stuff in the room, I went back and set up the SFWA Fan Table. I had received the necessary supplies just two days before: A banner, tablerunners, an ARCH D sized posterboard, two kinds of flyers, and rack cards.

It took less than an hour to get setup. I commented that it was WAY less work than setting up a dealer table. When I set up the tables for Water Dragon Publishing and Small Publishing in a Big Universe at Readercon, we had more than 70 titles to unbox, organize, and set up on book stands. By comparison, this was a snap.

Then I just hung out at the table.

I had some other events scheduled. I moderated a panel, served on three panels, and had a reading. They were all excellent. Well, all except the reading: Nobody came to my reading. I got my books out with cards and stickers and ribbons and ‘zines. But nobody came. I sat there for a half hour, then packed everything up and went on with the con. That’s how it is when you’re a nobody.

My younger son came with me and helped cover the fan table when I couldn’t be there. He made a point of telling people that he was not a SFWA member, but was eligible to be an associate member. He said that people told him nice things about me, which made me feel good.

I got to meet a lot of SFWA folks. Some current board members, former board members, and former officers stopped by. And a goodly number of members. I also got to explain SFWA to a bunch of new people. I don’t know how many new members we might get. But, personally, just getting to meet a bunch of people, was a big win for me.

We had been watching the weather and had considered staying another night in the event it looked bad. Originally, it looked like it might be a big snow event. But then it looked like it might just be rain. Then it looked like it might be icy. So we packed up a little early to drive during the warmest part of the afternoon. In the end, it was just rainy on the MassPike, but there had been a lot of snow at our house. We had no problem getting home, but I was a bit daunted to pull the car into the 8 inches of snow on the driveway. But I was able to park. Getting the car out may be another matter.

I’ve gotten my final schedule for Boskone, Feb 14-16! I’m moderating one panel, serving on three others, and offering a reading on Saturday afternoon. 

 Start Time              Title
Fri  2:30 PM       Biology in SF/F                                   
Sat 10:00 AM       SF and Totalitarianism                            
Sat 11:30 AM       Genetic Engineering (mod)                              
Sat  5:30 PM       Reading: Steven D. Brewer                         
Sun 10:00 AM       Fantasy Beyond Swords and Sorcery

There are a lot of great people on the panels with me. It should be a lot of fun!

We didn’t get a table in the dealer room this year and so, since I’ll otherwise be at liberty, I’ve decided to organize a fan table for SFWA. It will be in the Galleria (along with the dealer room) so stop by to say hi!

Steven D. Brewer
At Poet’s Seat in Greenfield

I am running for re-election as Secretary of SFWA. I have been serving in this role since the special election in November 2024.

My overriding goal as Secretary is to make sure that decisions of the Board are communicated to the membership clearly and in good time. Beyond that, I hope to continue to serve the organization while it navigates a complex transition to new leadership and a more solid foundation during a period of extreme political instability. 

When the previous Secretary changed positions last year, another candidate initially stepped forward and I thought, “Great! Someone else wants to do the work!” When that candidate withdrew after the deadline for announcing oneself as candidate, I proposed myself as a write-in candidate and was elected.

I am familiar with the role of Secretary in a non-profit, having served multiple other non-profits in various roles including as Secretary, Vice-President, and President. I believe I am generally effective at working within organizations for positive change.

The most important thing the volunteer Board needs to accomplish first is simply to restore the normal functioning of a member-led organization that has been riven by change, with nearly a complete turnover in staff and leadership over the past year. Restoring and then maintaining normal functioning is a necessary precondition for restoring trust of the membership. I share the frustrations of those who want us to move faster, and I want us to do that effectively by working from a solid foundation.

I am always an advocate for greater transparency, and have proposed the Board consider open meetings. I live in a state that requires open public meetings and I am very familiar with the trade-offs.. At minimum, there need to be clear definitions of what must be discussed in Executive Session and what must be discussed openly. Whether those definitions continue to be done by policy, or via bylaw changes, is important for the membership to consider.

I have already suggested we undertake a bylaws review. This is often a dull, tedious task that may seem to consume a vast amount of time for relatively little direct benefit, but our bylaws are out of date and at variance with how the organization now operates and should operate.

At the same time, SFWA needs strategic planning. We need to assess the current state of the organization, make decisions about what we want to see as a future state, and then develop a plan to move from where we are to where we want to go. By restoring normal functioning and reviewing the bylaws, we can develop an assessment of current state. Then we must engage in the long-range thinking necessary to envision the future state for the organization. Only then can we develop a plan for how to get there.

I would be honored to receive your vote to continue as Secretary of SFWA. I will do my best to work in the best interests of the organization.

I’ve served in leadership and Board roles in non-profits a number of times over the years. I’ve been a Secretary, Vice President, and President, in addition to serving on boards. I’ve learned some things about what makes a Board work.

Foremost is that the primary goal of the leadership should not be to make decisions, but rather to defend the power of the Board. I’ve served in organizations where tensions develop between the Executive Director and the elected leadership. And sometimes Presidents bring their own agenda that they would like to push through. It can feel simpler for the leadership to try to push their own agendas and treat the Board like a rubber stamp. But the leadership needs to resist that. The Board should remain in control and the leadership should only decide when the Board cannot.

Second, any decision you make as a Board is going to make some people unhappy. In dysfunctional organizations, the leadership can become paralyzed because it can feel like only way to avoid making people angry is to do nothing. Of course, doing nothing will also make some number of people angry. But it also guarantees the organization will founder and drift, rudderless.

A former Chancellor at my university had a saying about leadership that’s stuck with me. He said, “Money matters, quality counts, and time is the enemy.” Point being, money matters, but it’s not everything. Quality counts. If something is worth doing, it may be worth doing badly. But you need to prioritize, make tradeoffs, and not try to do everything if it means that everything is bad. Finally, the more time you spend deliberating and deciding will put the organization behind.

Since my recent election to SFWA, I’ve been reassured to find that the Board and leadership are aligned and prepared to work on addressing the real challenges that exist. I have great confidence that we are well positioned to more forward together as an organization.

One more observation: Shortly after I assumed a leadership position for the first time, I discovered an interesting phenomenon. The moment you step into the role, it’s like a target gets painted on your back. You assume ownership of all of the problems of the organization. And people who bear some grudge against the organization immediately start targeting you. So it has been here.

You can’t let it stop you.

pine cone

Yesterday, I attended my first Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers Association (SFWA) Board Meeting as Secretary. It was a thoroughly positive experience. I took notes carefully and generated a set of minutes. I shared both my raw notes and my proposed set of minutes with the Board in order to get feedback in terms of how much detail people would like in the minutes. Some boards I’ve served on would like the full set of notes, but a set of minutes is generally a concise set of notes that captures only the essentials of what was decided. It will take me a while to get a sense of this Board to understand what is needed.

I had only met a few of the board members previously. We did around of introductions and it was interesting to see the range of perspectives and backgrounds present. I think it’s a nicely diverse board with members who bring very different life experiences, although many of us have teaching backgrounds. I immediately was made to feel at home and I think I will fit in well.

Initially, I had no plans to be Secretary. During the summer, when it became clear that SFWA was facing some challenges, I offered myself as a volunteer. Since I am beginning my phased retirement, I have more time available to dedicate to service. When the special election was called, I saw that someone had immediately offered themselves for Secretary and I was like, “Great!” If someone else wanted to do the work, I was happy to let them have at it. But then, due to some new opportunity at work, that candidate decided they had to withdraw. Seeing no other candidate step forward, I was happy to do so. I’m familiar with the work of being Secretary and happy to do what I can to support the organization.

SFWA is going through a major transition. I was aware of SFWA long before I began seriously writing speculative fiction. When I first started getting my fiction published, I was eager to join. At the time, however, the rules were such that it seemed an insurmountable challenge to become eligible. The rules required getting certain number of publications in markets that paid “pro” rates — except hardly any did. I spoke with my publisher — a small press — about the issue. They pay about a quarter of pro rates and admitted that without some other significant source of funding, they would not be able to sustain paying higher rates. But then SFWA changed the rules to be measured against absolute earnings through publishing. I was immediately able to join as an “associate” member and, when I renewed my membership the following year, I had reached the level necessary for “full” membership.

Not everyone is evidently happy about the change. It has produced a large influx of eager new members but, reportedly, some of the old-time members preferred the exclusivity of the previous, more restrictive, rules for entry. Personally, I think the new rules are better and produce a population that is more representative of the population of speculative fiction authors the organization is designed to serve. But I recognize the diversity of viewpoints on the matter.

A number of people have been worried about SFWA. The Romance Writers of America recently collapsed into bankruptcy. When SFWA experienced a number of resignations in a short time, people worried that there was some deep, dark secret that meant that the organization itself was in jeopardy. I have seen nothing that suggests this is the case. There are some challenges, but they are ordinary sorts of challenges. I have every confidence that the current board will meet those challenges and the organization will emerge all the stronger.

I would again like to thank everyone who had the confidence to vote for me for Secretary. I know that I was a bit of a dark horse. But I will work hard to repay your trust and help SFWA to meet its challenges.

On October 23, 2024, I was elected Secretary of the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers Association. Thank you to everyone who supported my candidacy! I learned I had won from the Interim President (who will be Vice President going forward) who met with me via Zoom.

We had a good conversation. We discussed the expectations of the Secretary and a number of the upcoming activities: the business meeting and current thinking about how to organize the Nebulas.

He commented that I had received a very respectable number of votes — a surprisingly good showing for a write in candidate. I was gratified that my efforts of outreach — drafting a post to introduce myself, making postings in the SFWA Discord and Forum, and attending a SFWA Writing Date — were effective at introducing myself to the membership.

SFWA is currently facing a number of challenges. There have been a significant number of staff and officer resignations. And most recently, a newly elected board member had to be removed for cause. But it appears to me that the fundamentals of the organization are strong. I am hopeful that with new leadership, we can restore the organization to smooth operation.

My term is scheduled to begin on November 1, 2024 and will run through June 30, 2025 (since I am completing the term of the former officer). That should be plenty of time for me to determine whether I am a good fit and should continue in the role. I have typically enjoyed serving as Secretary: it’s work that I’m generally good at and allows me to play to my strengths. I look forward to meeting the rest of the board and getting to work!

Steven D. Brewer

Upon the withdrawal of the only announced candidate, I volunteer to serve as Secretary for the Science Fiction/Fantasy Writers Association in the Special Election. But as the deadline for new candidates has passed, my candidacy can only be as a write-in. If you write me in for Secretary I will serve. Read on to learn more about me as a candidate.

I believe I am eligible to be a candidate. I am a full member and I have been a member in good standing for more than two years. I have an internet connection. And I am not and have never been an employee of SFWA.

I am currently beginning a two-year phased retirement from my career in higher education at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. I currently teach scientific writing half-time and serve as Presiding Officer of the Faculty Senate. (That means I’m the guy that chairs the meetings.) At the end of academic year 2025-2026, I will be fully retired.

I have a long history of service. At the university, I have served on many boards, councils, and committees and in many officer roles, including secretary. Outside of the university, I have been the secretary of two non-profits that are of similar size to SFWA, at least in terms of budget: The Esperanto League for North American (DBA Esperanto-USA, where I also served a term as vice-president and 8 years as webmaster) and Amherst Community Television (DBA Amherst Media, where I served a term as secretary and two terms as president). I have also served for a number of years on the organizing committee for a regional technology conference: the Western Mass Drupal Camp which evolved into the New England Regional Developers (NERD) Summit.

As an author, I’ve had several short stories published in anthologies, but have also published two books with Water Dragon Publishing. One is Revin’s Heart, a steampunky fantasy adventure with pirates and airships and a trans protagonist which was serialized in seven novelettes and came out as a fix-up published January 2024. I’ve also published Better Angels: Tour de Force, an anthology of fluffy, military, space-opera short stories for the Truck Stop at the Center of the Galaxy (a shared-world anthology) about a group of non-human biological androids that look like pre-teen girls who serve as magical-girl, singing-and-dancing idols, but who can change up their programming and become a covert military force. My forthcoming book, A Familiar Problem (due in January 2025) is a dark, cozy fantasy about a young man who desperately wants a strong magical familiar but who, instead, is captured and made the familiar of a powerful demon that intends to train him up for something. But what?

I also speak Esperanto and, before I began publishing in English, I had several speculative fiction stories, haibun, and essays published in Esperanto, some of which won awards in the international Belarta Konsurso. I also self-published four chapbooks of Esperanto haiku, which you can still find and purchase via Amazon.

I hope you’ll consider writing me in for Secretary in the SFWA Special Election.

For the second year, I proposed myself as a participant for the Nebulas Science Fiction/Fantasy Writers Association (SFWA) convention, but wasn’t selected. I was on the fence about attending and agonized for several days but, at the last minute, decided to register for the online track. I’m glad I did.

In point of fact, I don’t feel like I learned all that much. I attended panels about novellas and novelettes, short fiction, genres, making a collection, religion, microfiction, LGBTQIA+ characters, and book promotion. The panels were fine, but I’ve been involved in publishing and marketing my own books now for long enough that these topics are mostly familiar. Even if I didn’t learn much new, that’s useful too: determining that there isn’t something obvious that I’ve been missing.

I spent a fair amount of time networking with people via Zoom. I met a bunch of new people and reconnected with a number of people I’d met before. Being unable to socialize much due to my health circumstances, I really value the opportunity to meet with people remotely.

One person I saw was someone I had clashed with in a different, text-based, online environment. I was somewhat concerned that it would be awkward but, as has typically happened with me, when you’re dealing with people face-to-face, someone that’s happy to flame and deride you in text, will instead be nice as pie. I like to think I’m pretty much the same person regardless of context and circumstances, so I’m always surprised when other people who will slam you in writing, will turn out to be perfectly nice to your face. Weird.

I would have liked to stay up the award ceremony, especially to hang out in the Zoom session to chat with people while it was going on. But the event, running on Pacific Time, didn’t start until 11pm and I just couldn’t make myself stay up that late. So went to bed early.

Today, I became a full member of the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers Association. Almost a year ago, I joined as an Associate Member, but with the publications I did last year with Water Dragon Publishing, I now qualify for FULL membership.

I’ve appreciated the value of an organization like SFWA that allows freelancers to band together to push for fair treatment from the big corporations. When I first started writing, it looked almost unattainable because, under the existing rules, only a few venues for publication “counted” in terms of establishing a track record as a published author. But, about a year ago, they changed the rules which has enabled a big new influx of small-press and self-published authors. I think it will end up making the organization stronger.

For the first year, I was just an “associate member.” Basically, you get most of the benefits but can’t participate in governance. But now, as a full member, I get to vote for board members and officers. And I could serve. That isn’t likely to happen any time soon because I have too much else on my plate. But, at some point, I might decide to do that.

In any event, I’m extremely pleased to be a full member as its been an ambition of mine since even before I began getting my work published. Thank you Water Dragon Publishing and go me!

For years, I was aware of the Science Fiction Writers Association (SFWA) although the eligibility for membership looked pretty far out of reach. But this spring, they changed the rules and I became eligible to join, which I did as soon as possible.

When I joined SFWA, one of the things I discovered was the SFWA Writing Date. Each week, late Sunday afternoon, folks could get together via Zoom to socialize for a few minutes, then write for 45 minutes, socialize again, and then write again. It was nice to have an excuse to meet some writer friends and get some work done.

In August, there was a call looking for people to “host” the writing date. Each week, there were a couple of SFWA people to handle the tech stuff, but then there would an author that was the formal host: they would smile, run a little icebreaker, and generally try to make people feel good that they’d attended. So I put my name forward. And I got picked! There were only a couple of dates that I thought could work for me, but I got the Sunday before the Thanksgiving week.

I got an email the week before that included directions for how I could have a “porthole”. I had seen that the staff running the writing date had little “windows” that looked out into a moving starfield or nebula or something. When I tried to do it on my computer, I discovered that the Zoom client for linux doesn’t offer the capability to have a video background. But I was planning to use OBS Studio anyway and it *does* have the capability so it wasn’t hard to set it up. I cut out a couple of pieces of florescent orange card stock and taped them up over the window in the cover of For the Favor of a Lady. It worked great.

For the icebreaker, I decided to riff on the classic by Barbara Walters. She would always open with the question, “What kind of tree would you like to be and where would you grow?” I’ve used this for years with my writing class. But for this audience, I mixed it up a little by asking, “What kind of FICTIONAL tree would you like to be, preferably from speculative fiction?”

People really got into it! I was really pleased at the response. I was a bit surprised at the ones nobody guessed, but also at some of the ones that I hadn’t been aware of.

After that, the writing was almost anti-climactic. I wrote about 1400 words in the two blocks of time. I’m starting a new story that I will, hopefully, be able to wrap up before the end of the Thanksgiving break.